Ardea

Ardea is a genus of herons. These herons are generally large in size, typically 80–100 cm or more in length.

Ardea

JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ ) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
heronPBDB
Sits inside
ArdeidaePBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Ardeidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Ardeidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ardeidae

Time the record covers

At least 33 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 0 Mya.

Eocene — about 1 of 82 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 82 occurrencesMiocene — about 8 of 82 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3 of 82 occurrencesPleistocene — about 49 of 82 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences12–10 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences10–9.0 Mya — about 1 occurrence9.0–7.7 Mya — about 1 occurrence7.7–6.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences6.4–5.1 Mya — about 2 occurrences5.1–3.8 Mya — about 2 occurrences3.8–2.6 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences2.6–1.3 Mya — about 6 occurrences1.3–0 Mya — about 64 occurrences33.9 Mya11.7 ka38.5 Mya0 Mya

82 occurrences of Ardea on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

82 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

13 formations

Gabal Silsila — 24.77°N, 32.95°EGabal Silsila — 24.43°N, 32.95°EGebel Silsila-YCS — 24.50°N, 33.00°EPeace River — 27.68°N, 81.95°WAlachua — 29.55°N, 82.52°WYorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°WAmerican Falls Lake Bed E — 42.80°N, 112.90°WBone Valley — 27.90°N, 81.80°WBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WTamiami — 27.37°N, 82.45°WAdu Asa — 10.32°N, 40.25°EOkeechobee — 27.53°N, 80.47°WLaguna de Tagua Tagua — 34.50°S, 71.17°WSiesta — 37.85°N, 122.11°W

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The named rock units Ardea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 66 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ardea and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Ardea and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,885 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 70 sites for Ardea, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

51 references

Each of the 82 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 39 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Ardea

Credit
JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ )
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Ardea cinerea · l-jz:JZ:107

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itArdeidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758